 | This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points.(September 2011) |
| Chaser | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Cauldron |
| Publisher(s) | JoWooD Productions |
| Composer(s) |
|
| Engine | CloakNT |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Chaser is a first-person shooter action video game developed by Cauldron. The game is built on the CloakNT 3D engine. It was re-released on Steam and GOG.com in 2011.
The game takes place in the future, when humanity has colonized Mars. A coalition of 36 top industrial corporations establish the MARSCORP consortium in 2036 with the goal of terraforming the planet. In 2042, MARSCORP has become the de facto autocratic government of Mars, with its director Samuel Longwood being a ruthless dictator. Meanwhile, Graham Castor's highly elusive rebels seek to liberate Mars.
The game's protagonist wakes up in the medical bay of the space station HMS Majestic, which is under attack by unknown assailants looking for him. Having recovered a gun, he fights his way to an escape pod and flees, moments before the station explodes. The escape pod crashlands into the fictional city of Montack somewhere in the United States, where the news of the Majestic massacre has preceded him. According to the television, he is a notorious Martian rebel called John Chaser.
A wanted man, he is recruited into the Vallero crime family, which is at war with the local Yakuza chapter. The family implants a small remote-controlled bomb into each of its members to ensure their loyalty. As such, on the eve of an attack on Yakuza headquarters (Hotel Nippon), Chaser secretly visits a Japanese hacker in the Yakuza-controlled part of the city to remove the bomb. While receiving weapons and ammo, Chaser hides the bomb inside Vallero's limousine. Shortly afterwards, Vallero learns of Chaser's unauthorized foray into Yakuza territory and detonates the bomb, killing himself. Chaser disappears after killing all of Vallero's men, the Yakuza leaders and scores of Yakuza gunmen.
By this time, Chaser has had recovered a few vague fragments of his memory: On Mars, a vehicle full of armed men led by the fearsome Scott Stone attack the building where Chaser was, gunning him down and taking away his body.
Chaser contacts Kabir, a smuggler who promises transit to Mars in exchange for Chaser escorting Kabir's contraband to Siberia. There, Kabir betrays Chaser and shoots him several times. According to an elderly eyewitness, just as Kabir was about to finish Chaser, an armed man in black scared him and his men away and injected Chaser with medicine. Having recovered, Chaser attacks a local labor camp and rescues a man who can lead him to Kabir's base of operations, an old spaceport. After killing Kabir and his men, Chaser departs to Mars.
On Mars, Chaser is thrown in prison, where he meets one of his old comrades. They orchestrate an escape plan which, unbeknown to them, is seen and heard by Longwood himself. Once they escape the prison, they make contact with one of the rebels who informs them that Longwood has been rerouting terraforming money into his own projects, including illegal human cloning and memory transfer. They orchestrate a plan of assassination in which they blow up a train carrying Longwood.
With Longwood officially announced dead, the rebels return to their base to celebrate, only to be attacked by Longwood's forces. After an extended gunfight, the base is overrun and both Chaser and Castor are captured. Longwood, alive and well, reveals that the protagonist is, in fact, Scott Stone. The real John Chaser died before he could be interrogated. Aboard the Majestic, Stone assumed Chaser's appearance through plastic surgery. Castor's men, however, attacked the Majestic and disrupted the memory transfer process, leaving him an amnesiac. Castor admits to being responsible for the attack, but vehemently denies all else and pleads with the protagonist not to join Longwood.
Eventually, the protagonist shoots Castor dead. Even though the prospect of interrogating him is gone, Longwood is pleased. He has his men shoot the protagonist and drag his barely alive body away.
The gameplay is fast-paced. There are 12 maps. These maps make up the gameplay over four different game modes:
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | 66/100 [3] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| AllGame |   [4] |
| Computer Games Magazine | [5] |
| Computer Gaming World | [6] |
| Eurogamer | 7/10 [7] |
| GameSpot | 8/10 [8] |
| GameSpy | [9] |
| GameZone | 7.9/10 [10] |
| IGN | 7.5/10 [11] |
| PC Gamer (US) | 69% [12] |
| X-Play | [13] |
The game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. [3] Scott Osborne of GameSpot said that the game offers "loads of thrilling, old school shooter action". [8]
Red Faction is a first-person shooter video game developed by Volition and published by THQ for PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows in 2001, and Macintosh platforms in 2001 and 2002. A version for the N-Gage was developed by Monkeystone Games, and the mobile version was developed by Blue Beck. The game was inspired by several works of contemporary science fiction.
Deathmatch, also known as free-for-all, is a gameplay mode integrated into many shooter games, including first-person shooter (FPS), and real-time strategy (RTS) video games, where the goal is to kill the other players' characters as many times as possible. The deathmatch may end on a frag limit or a time limit, and the winner is the player that accumulated the greatest number of frags.
Unreal Tournament 2003 is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes, and published by Infogrames under the Atari brand name. The game is part of the Unreal franchise, and is a sequel to 1999's Unreal Tournament. Like its predecessor, the game is designed mainly for multiplayer gaming.
Unreal Tournament 2004 is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. Part of the Unreal franchise, it is the third game in the Unreal Tournament series and the updated version of Unreal Tournament 2003.
Blood is a 3D first-person shooter video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by GT Interactive and developed using Ken Silverman’s Build engine. The shareware version was released for MS-DOS on March 7, 1997, while the full version was later released on May 21 in North America, and June 20 in Europe.
Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior is a Warhammer 40,000 video game for the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows. It was developed by Kuju Entertainment and released in September 2003.
Starsiege is a mecha-style vehicle simulation game developed by Dynamix and released in 1999. Starsiege is set in the Metaltech/Earthsiege universe, which contains its predecessors Earthsiege (1994), Battledrome (1994), and Earthsiege 2 (1996). This universe also includes action game Hunter Hunted (1996), strategy games Mission Force: Cyberstorm (1996) and Cyberstorm 2: Corporate Wars (1998). It also includes the sequelsStarsiege: Tribes and all subsequent Tribes titles. In 2015, this game and the rest of the Metaltech/Tribes series were released as freeware by Hi-Rez Studios, but Battledrome and the Cyberstorm series were not.
Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is a first- and third-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Midway Games. It was released in April 2005 for Xbox. The game is part of the Unreal franchise, and is a direct sequel to 2002's Unreal Championship. Unreal Championship 2 was designed from the ground up to take full advantage of the Xbox Live gaming service.
Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix is a first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software, the sequel to Soldier of Fortune. It was developed using the id Tech 3 engine as opposed to the original's id Tech 2, and published in 2002. Once again, Raven hired John Mullins to act as a consultant on the game. Based on criticisms of the original game, Raven Software developed Soldier of Fortune II to be a more "realistic" game, with more modern tactical shooters like Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis (2001) and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998) serving as inspirations, rather than Quake (1996).
XIII ("thirteen") is a first-person shooter video game, loosely based on the first five volumes of the 1984 Belgian graphic novel series of the same name. Developed and published by Ubisoft, it was released in November 2003 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, and GameCube; an Xbox version of the game, released at the same time, was developed by Southend Interactive, while an OS X version was developed by Zonic, published by Feral Interactive, and released in June 2004.
Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Midway Games. Part of the Unreal franchise, it is the fourth game in the Unreal Tournament series, and the eighth and final game overall; its name is in reflection of the game being the first in the franchise to use Unreal Engine 3. It was released on November 19, 2007, for Microsoft Windows, December 10 for the PlayStation 3, and on July 3, 2008, for the Xbox 360. OS X and Linux ports were planned, but they were eventually cancelled. A free-to-play version, entitled Unreal Tournament 3 X, was leaked in late 2022 and cancelled in 2023.
Gore: Ultimate Soldier, also known as simply Gore, is a first-person shooter video game for Microsoft Windows, released on June 5, 2002. It was published by DreamCatcher Interactive and developed by 4D Rulers.
Devastation is a first-person shooter video game by American developer Digitalo Studios, released for Windows and Linux in 2003. The game takes place in an impoverished, dystopian near-future Earth, pitting an underground group of rebels against an oppressive, all-powerful mega-corporation. It is an action-oriented first person shooter based on the Unreal Engine, that focuses heavily on team-based gameplay in both single-player and multiplayer.
Counter-Strike Online (CSO) is a tactical first-person shooter video game, targeted towards Asia's gaming market released in 2008. It is based on Counter-Strike and was developed by Nexon with oversight from license-holder Valve. It uses a micropayment model that is managed by a custom version of Steam.
Altitude is a multiplayer 2D aerial combat video game developed by American independent software developers Erik Measure and Karl Sabo. The game was released on May 1, 2009 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It became available on Steam on December 4, 2009. It has become a free game in 2014, from the previous 9.99 price.
SOCOM 4 U.S. Navy SEALs is a tactical shooter video game developed by Zipper Interactive and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 3. It is the sequel to SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Combined Assault and is also the last installment for the franchise.
Yakuza: Dead Souls is an action-adventure survival horror video game developed and published by Sega for the PlayStation 3. The game is a spin-off of the Like a Dragon series. The game was originally scheduled for release in Japan on March 17, 2011 two days after the release of Yakuza 4 in North America; however, after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the release was indefinitely delayed. A new release date, setting the game's release for June 9, was announced on April 7. The game was also released in North America and Europe by Sega in March 2012. The gameplay and themes are based on another Sega horror-themed rail gun called The House of the Dead series.
Contagion is a survival horror first-person shooter video game, developed and published for PC by American independent studio Monochrome. It is the spiritual successor to Zombie Panic! Source. The game was mostly self-funded of its development, but with the support of others via a successful Kickstarter campaign, it was able to be released on Steam as an Early Access title. Contagion released on October 25, 2013 as a Steam Early Access title and was published as full release on April 11, 2014.
Unreal Tournament is a cancelled first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games. It was planned to be the ninth game in the Unreal franchise, the fifth game in the Unreal Tournament series, and the first entry since 2007's Unreal Tournament 3. The game utilizes Epic's Unreal Engine 4 and was planned for release for free on Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux. The game was released as a pre-alpha on August 13, 2014, but never completed due to Epic Games' focus on Fortnite Battle Royale.
Spriggan Mark 2: Re-Terraform Project is a 1992 horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed by Compile and published in Japan by Naxat Soft for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM². It is a follow-up to Seirei Senshi Spriggan (1991). The game follows lieutenant Greg Erwin piloting the armed Bartholomeu armor and later the Spriggan Mark 2 in a war between two opposing forces to decide the fate of a space colony at Mars. The player must fight against waves of enemies to avoid collision with their projectiles and other obstacles, while intermissions between characters during gameplay advances the storyline.